Denis Mostyn Norden, CBE (born 6 February 1922) is a retired English comedy writer and television presenter. After an early career working in cinemas, he began scriptwriting during World War II. From 1948 to 1959, he co-wrote the successful BBC Radio comedy programme Take It From Here with Frank Muir. Muir and Norden remained associated for more than 50 years: after they stopped collaborating on scripts, they appeared regularly together on radio panel programmes My Word! and My Music.

Norden wrote scripts for Hollywood films. He also presented television programmes on ITV for many years, including the nostalgia quiz Looks Familiar and blooper shows It'll Be Alright on the Night and Laughter File. He retired in 2006.

In 1964, their writing partnership broke up, as Muir moved into management with the BBC. Over the next several years, Norden, who had long had a fascination with Hollywood, wrote the scripts for several films, including Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell and The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom. Although he was no longer writing with Muir, the two regularly appeared together on panel shows My Word! (1956–1990) and My Music (1966–1993), first on radio then TV. Norden also hosted an ITV/Channel 4 nostalgia quiz, Looks Familiar.

In 1965, Norden wrote, narrated and starred in a featurette jointly made by the James Bond producers and the Ford Motor Company. The colour short, entitled "A Child's Guide to Blowing up a Motor Car", went behind the scenes of an exploding car stunt being filmed for Thunderball. Norden takes a young relative on a day out to a film set, where they meet several stars and production team members, but not Sean Connery. Lost for many years, it is now available on the 'Ultimate Edition' DVD of Thunderball, as released in late 2006.[1]

It'll be Alright on the Night, first broadcast in 1977, consisted of out-takes from film and television linked by witty comments. Much of the material from the early episodes was used on Dick Clark's "Bloopers" specials which aired on NBC a few years later. A couple of mid-1980s editions featured several home video clips: with the increasing private ownership of domestic camcorders, clips were spun off into the long-running You've Been Framed! (1990–).

Laughter File, first broadcast in 1991, showed spoof adverts, real foreign adverts, practical jokes, live television mistakes and other various 'oddities', which Norden said, "tickled our fancies, just when they needed tickling". These items included virtually everything discovered during research for material suitable for Alright on the Night that was not eligible for that show.

Norden announced his retirement from his two long-running ITV shows It'll be Alright on the Night and Laughter File on 21 April 2006 because of his age (84) and also because of poor health.[2]

A special show was recorded on 14 May 2006 as a 'farewell tour' to all his shows over the years, called All the Best from Denis Norden, which was shown on 2 January 2007. As the show's closing credits were shown, the studio audience gave Norden a standing ovation, which was then followed by Norden placing his trademark clipboard on his desk, which the camera then zoomed in on to as the credits ended. He has since been succeeded on It'll be Alright on the Night by Griff Rhys Jones, as that show resumed in September 2008.

For years, he was resistant to producing an autobiography, claiming that much of his life and career had already been well covered by Frank Muir's A Kentish Lad and that a book called The Bits Frank Left Out would be too brief. Nevertheless, in October 2008, a book containing a sequence of autobiographical sketches was published entitled Clips from a Life.[3][4]

He continues to make occasional television and radio appearances. He contributed to a BBC Four season about the history of satire, and he appeared as a guest on The One Show on 2 October 2008 to talk about his life and career as well as his book. He was interviewed in a one-off documentary Der Sommer 1939 ("The Summer of 1939"), which was broadcast on 12 August 2009 on the German television station Arte. Norden also appeared as part of a contribution of showbiz friends, writers and performers in the BBC documentary, The Secret Life of Bob Monkhouse in January 2011.

He and his wife Avril have a son, Nick, an architect, and a daughter, Maggie, a radio personality and lecturer at the London College of Fashion. Maggie was a presenter on London's Capital Radio in its earlier days and presented the Sunday afternoon programme "Hullabaloo".